Bairnwort

The ideal childhood I almost had was replete with sighing daisies. What softer blossom

opened in 1974? Mothers everywhere adorned themselves with bellis

perennis, smelled like them, wore them in their hair and underwear, and the

sidewalks were strewn with delicate, common white petals. Soft yellow discs

pressed against the noses of hopeful children as they inhaled the earliest time, a

familiar face leaning over the crib, the loveworn eye of the day. A decade full of

popped, resilient flowers.

Moroccan, African, Carmel, Shasta, in all your worldly ranges of purple peach

blue salt of the sea, petal me in all the days I weep after, blowing my nose into

another ending. Circle me in eternity’s flower-chain: ox-eye over the ocean, floret

in the notebook, striped seed on the wind.

Inspired by collage by Fred Free. “und am 26. juli, 2013,” pasted paper.

“Bairnwort” first appeared in The 22 Magazine vol. 4, Fall/Winter 2013.